Anyone else using a Raspberry Pi to monitor their inverter data locally?

Been running a Pi 4 (2GB) tucked behind the Victron MPPT in my motorhome for about 18 months now and honestly it's transformed how I understand my system.

I've got it pulling data from a Cerbo GX via MQTT over the local network, feeding into InfluxDB, and visualising everything through Grafana. The dashboards run on a cheap 7" touchscreen mounted near the cab — SOC, battery voltage, PV yield, inverter load, all updated every 5 seconds. No cloud dependency whatsoever, which matters when you're parked in a field in mid-Wales with no signal.

The trickiest bit was getting stable power to the Pi without it corrupting the SD card on a hard cutoff. Solved that with a UPS HAT (the Waveshare one) running off a dedicated 18650 cell — gives it a clean shutdown when the system drops below a voltage threshold.

A few things worth knowing if you're starting out:

• Use a quality SD card (Samsung Endurance Pro series) or better yet, boot from USB SSD
• Set up log2ram to reduce write cycles
• The Victron VRM MQTT bridge documentation is a bit sparse — community GitHub repos fill the gaps nicely

Currently eyeing up integrating my Fogstar Drift 100Ah BMS data via RS485, though the JK BMS protocol documentation is patchy at best.

Anyone else gone down this rabbit hole? Particularly curious whether anyone's managed to integrate Renogy charge controller data alongside Victron kit — I've seen conflicting reports about the Modbus implementation being unreliable on certain firmware versions.

@RustyRoamer interesting setup. I went a slightly different route — Pi Zero 2W pulling data directly from the Victron MPPT via VE.Direct USB adapter, no Cerbo in the loop. Runs Grafana + InfluxDB locally, stores about 6 months of data before I need to prune it.

Main reason I avoided the Cerbo was cost, frankly. For a static caravan that doesn't move, it felt like paying for features I'd never use.

One thing worth flagging — the Pi Zero runs warm in an enclosed space. Had a couple of throttling incidents last summer before I added a small heatsink. Worth monitoring vcgencmd measure_temp if you haven't already.

Have you looked at VictronConnect's historical data limitations? That was my original frustration that pushed me toward local logging in the first place.

Great thread this! @RustyRoamer I've been running something similar for about eight months now, though I took a slightly different approach and went with a Pi 3B+ I had gathering dust in the garage.

Rather than going through the Cerbo, I'm pulling data directly via Modbus TCP and feeding it into InfluxDB with Grafana dashboards on top. The historical trending has been absolutely invaluable for spotting that my battery bank wasn't quite performing as expected during colder nights — something I'd never have noticed just glancing at the Cerbo screen.

One thing worth mentioning — I've got mine running on a good quality SD card and I've moved the OS to a small USB SSD to avoid the inevitable card corruption that happens with constant read/writes. Lost six months of data learning that lesson the hard way! 😅

@RustyRoamer similar setup here for the garden office — Pi 4 (4GB) running Grafana + InfluxDB, pulling from a Cerbo GX via MQTT over the local network. Been rock solid for over a year.

One thing worth flagging that I don't see mentioned much: disk wear on the SD card is a real issue if you're writing metrics every 5 seconds or so. I lost two cards before moving the InfluxDB data directory to a USB SSD. Night and day for reliability.

Also worth considering — I've got a small UPS hat (the Waveshare one) on the Pi itself, so if the battery gets critically low and the Cerbo shuts down, the Pi still logs the event cleanly before powering off rather than just corrupting mid-write.

@DucatoProject curious which library you're using for the MP2 comms — Modbus TCP or the VE.Bus direct approach?

@RustyRoamer interesting thread. Quick question though — when you say "pulling data from the Cerbo GX," are you doing that via the MQTT broker running on the Cerbo itself, or are you scraping the VRM portal API remotely?

I ask because I'm mid-build on my van conversion and I'm trying to decide whether a Cerbo GX is actually necessary for local monitoring, or whether @DucatoProject's approach of going direct to the MPPT via VE.Direct is sufficient for most use cases.

Specifically, what data points does the Cerbo expose that you can't get directly from the MPPT and inverter/charger separately? Battery state of health, perhaps?

Also — is anyone running this entirely offline with no VRM account linked? I'm wary of cloud dependency for something that needs to work in the middle of nowhere.

Been meaning to post something like this for ages. Running a Pi Zero 2W in the shepherd's hut pulling data via Modbus TCP from the Victron kit — surprisingly capable little thing for the price.

One thing I'd add that nobody's mentioned: power consumption matters when you're off-grid. The Zero 2W sips maybe 1-2W versus the Pi 4's 5-7W under load. Small difference on paper but over a winter month that's real amp-hours when your panels are barely generating.

Also worth looking at Node-RED if you haven't — I use it alongside Grafana and it lets you set up automations triggered by the monitoring data. Mine sends a pushover alert if battery drops below 20% SOC overnight.

@FormerMariner1 Modbus TCP is the easier route imo, no extra hardware needed if you've already got a Cerbo.